Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography (WOMEN IN HISTORY)

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Chambers, Frank McMinn (1941). "Some Legends Concerning Eleanor of Aquitaine". Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. University of Chicago Press. 16 (4): 459–468. doi: 10.2307/2852844. JSTOR 2852844. S2CID 162522341. The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France Between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries, Marcus Graham Bull, 2005 When you finish the book you feel you have been put painlessly (but not necessarily without tears) in possession of the facts about this extraordinary, indefatigable woman." ( The Spectator)

Woven with great skill and cunning detective work into a vivid and haunting portrait." ( Ms London) Historical fiction author Ariana Franklin features Eleanor prominently in her novel The Serpent's Tale (2008) and the queen appears again as a character in subsequent novel A Murderous Procession (2010). Pikkemaat, Guus (2011). Eleonore van Aquitanië 1122–1204, een bijzondere vrouw in het zomertij der middeleeuwen (in Dutch). Aspekt. ISBN 978-90-5911-510-1.Henry Plantagenet became the most radical monarch in English history. During the next thirty-five years he revolutionized government, streamlining it and making it so efficient the government could function king-less if necessary. Queen Elanor's Confession, or Queen Eleanor's Confession, is Child Ballad 156. Although the figures are intended as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, and William Marshal, the story is an entire invention.

The crusade did not go well, and Eleanor and Louis grew increasingly estranged. After several fraught years during which Eleanor sought an annulment and Louis faced increasing public criticism, they were eventually granted an annulment on the grounds of consanguinity (being related by blood) in 1152 and separated, their two daughters left in the custody of the king. Eleanor Becomes Queen of England In 1137 Duke William X left Poitiers for Bordeaux and took his daughters with him. Upon reaching Bordeaux, he left them in the charge of the archbishop of Bordeaux, one of his few loyal vassals. The duke then set out for the Shrine of Saint James of Compostela in the company of other pilgrims. However, he died on Good Friday of that year (9 April).Weir approaches Eleanor`s story with an objective eye and a mass of source material. The result is as vivid as it is informative." ( The Times) Sometime between the end of March and the beginning of May, Eleanor left Poitiers, but was arrested and sent to the king at Rouen. The king did not announce the arrest publicly; for the next year, the queen's whereabouts were unknown. On 8 July 1174, Henry and Eleanor took ship for England from Barfleur. As soon as they disembarked at Southampton, Eleanor was taken either to Winchester Castle or Sarum Castle and held there. Elvins, Mark Turnham (2006). Gospel Chivalry: Franciscan Romanticism. Gracewing. ISBN 978-0-85244-664-5.

Eleanor of Aquitaine is thought to be the queen of England mentioned in the poem "Were diu werlt alle min," used as the tenth movement of Carl Orff's famous cantata, Carmina Burana. [44] She did one thing, however, that proved disastrous for both Henry’s reign and her own liberty. In 1173, Eleanor’s sons, Henry ‘the Young King’, Richard (later called Lionheart) and Geoffrey of Brittany, rebelled against their father, encouraged by Louis VII. Most chroniclers agree that Eleanor supported their revolt. Why she did so isn’t clear, but Henry was publicly unfaithful and the couple had long been estranged. Eleanor probably urged her southern vassals to aid her rebel sons. A famous troubadour, Bertran de Born, supported the young Henry’s revolt – earning himself a memorable place in Dante’s hell as a false counsellor. So quarrelsome was the whole Angevin family that one chronicler, Richard of Devizes, compared them to the house of Oedipus. At any event, the rebellion went badly. It was crushed by Henry’s troops and his heir, the Young King, died on campaign. Eleanor was arrested and imprisoned in various castles over the next sixteen years; she wasn’t released until Henry’s death in 1189. Although most sources condemn her part in the revolt, she had sympathisers even at the time. Geoffrey of Monmouth had compiled the so-called prophecies of Merlin in the 1130s, and now a series of interpreters came forth to identify the ‘eagle of the broken covenant’ as Queen Eleanor, spreading her regal wings over two realms and encouraging the precocious flight of her ‘eaglets’. Eleanor married Henry II in 1152 and was crowned in Westminster Abbey two years later. England was going through a turbulent period, and Eleanor’s vassals in Aquitaine would do homage only to their duchess, not to the English king. From 1168 to 1173, she lived on her own lands in Poitiers. In her late forties, still renowned for her beauty, she presided over a glittering court that has been the subject of scholarly debate since the late 19th century. Capellanus’s De Amore (1180s), a parody of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, codified the ‘rules’ of courtly love expressed in troubadour lyrics and romances. The most scandalous section involves the ‘courts of love’, in which a panel of noble ladies, including Eleanor and her daughter Marie of Champagne, give their verdicts. In one decision, coming close to home, Eleanor criticises a lady who wishes to stay with her lover even after he has discovered their kinship. A woman who ‘seeks to preserve an incestuous love’, she warns, ‘is going against what is right and proper’.Ball, Margaret (2006). Duchess of Aquitaine: A Novel of Eleanor. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-4299-0139-0. The conflict that ensued culminated in the massacre of hundreds of innocents in the town of Vitry—during a siege of the town, a great number of the populace took refuge in a church, which was set aflame by Louis’s troops. Dogged by guilt over his role in the tragedy for years, Louis responded eagerly to the Pope’s call for a crusade in 1145. Eleanor joined him on the dangerous–and ill fated–journey west. One of the most fascinating stories in history is that of Eleanor of Aquitaine. I have always found her an enigmatic and elusive figure, and writing her biography was a labour of love - something I had wanted to do for over a quarter of a century. Most of my research was done in the 1970s, when I transcribed thousands of references to the medieval queens of England from chronicles in the Rolls Series and other contemporary sources. This huge bank of material lay forgotten for years until a reader wrote begging me to write a book on Eleanor. This inspired me to look again at the research, and I realised that it had the makings of a wonderful project. All that remained was to convince my publishers of this. However, after the success of Elizabeth the Queen, the time was right for me to write a book about another strong and independent woman in history. Eleanor (or Aliénor) was the oldest of three children of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, whose glittering ducal court was renowned in early 12th-century Europe, and his wife, Aenor de Châtellerault, the daughter of Aimery I, Viscount of Châtellerault, and Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard, who was William IX's longtime mistress as well as Eleanor's maternal grandmother. Her parents' marriage had been arranged by Dangereuse with her paternal grandfather William IX.